A Birthday Out Of This World!

So this weekend was my little brother's sixth birthday, I can't believe he's six already, he was born a week after I moved to Southampton where my dad lives for University so we have a really strong bond. I try to get down to see them all as much as I can and love being able to enjoy all of the fun things with - luckily he loves baking!

Since his fourth birthday I've made all of his birthday cakes, and they've all been Mario based - last year I did try for Toy Story...I lost the battle. This year however his obsession is space and planets, he still loves Mario but he really can't get enough of the solar system at the moment. Which of course is brilliant and already decided to make planets for the cake, the only down side is that he knows exactly how big they should all be in comparison to each other! I did get special permission though to put them in any order I wanted...very generous of him :D There was a last minute request for Mario riding Yoshi but I managed to get out of it!

He had a family party and a party for his friends, I normally only do the friends party cake, but I was so excited about not having to do Mario for once I decided to make both. Luckily though for the family cake I only made giant cupcake which I now make in record time. So for the family party I decided to still use the space theme, I'm a bit annoyed I left my nozzles at home so wasn't able to swirl the buttercream in my normal fashion, but them with it being 'space' the normal rose swirl would look a little odd? Anywhere there is the first cake, As for the planets I made (or attempted to) Mars, Earth, Saturn and Neptune, I also made the sun for them to orbit - I made these out of fondant and were a bit droopy in places but he loved them so that's all that matters. I topped it in blue vanilla buttercream, gold stars and of course tied it up with a gold bow. These giant cupcakes actually feed a surprising amount of people i must have cut at least ten slices leaving a good fifth left!

So onto the next cake! This is now the third year running he has had a bowling party, it all began when he become hooked on Wii bowling and discovered real bowling was just as fun! So being given free reign with the space theme I decided to combine it with bowling and make a bowling-space cake! I had a great idea that planets would make brilliant bowling balls...I tried to make them look quite cosmic with the cake glitter and marbleing but think they look like normal bowling balls but actually think they look brilliant!

 The cake itself is vanilla with vanilla buttercream, covered in blue fondant. I did try to keep the colour uneven for a milkyway effect but not too sure on how that worked out. I decided to go with the bowling alley look as it gave me a lot of surface area to play with and he loved the idea of being able to bowl with planets. The lanes again I tried to marble to give a wood effect and the arrows I made from cutting out a small black star and chopping the points off to make sure they were all the same size. 

I did made 10 pins but it looked far too crowded so left a few out, I loved the idea of making them look like they were being smashed out of the cake by the planet ball so made them with sugarpaste onto mini cake pop sticks so they could come out at all angles. I also piped some red icing to make them look more realistic. I have to say I get really competitive on the lanes and always check out the other cakes so see what everyone else brought....( I won! shhhhh - yes I'm childish!)

 The sides of the cake gave me lots of room to make planets. First I smeared blue cake glitter to try to create that milkway effect in a band and then layered the planets and stars on top. I went for Neptune, Saturn, the Moon, Mercury and again the Sun. I dusted them all with glitter to make them look a bit more galactic. The big stars I made with yellow fondant covered in gold glitter and the small ones I bought in a pack from The Happy Cupcake Company in Lyme Regis. To finished I made a curly '6' for the top and edged it with a red ribbon all ready for the party.

I gave him our present the day before, a peronalised Southampton football kit (his favourite team) with a 6 on the back, in a space box I drew on! As for the party itself, well it was crazy! 11 hyped up children running out with baloon swords and dasies throwing around heavy bowling balls...it was brilliant! He even got his own skittle to take home. I wonder what cake I'll be asked to make him next year? Whatever it is I bet Mario won't be too far away...

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